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Published on: February 16, 2011
Visual Assessment of Therapeutic Relationships in Psychiatric Patients: A Pilot Study Using the Pictorial
Kiyoshi Naganuma1, Misari Oe1,2, Tetsuya Ishida1
1Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University School of Medicine.
Background:
Although the therapeutic relationship (or 'alliance') is well known to be a key component of psychiatric treatment, there has been no simple way to objectively measure the patient-therapist relationship. Here, we measured the psychological distance between patients and their therapists by using the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (PRISM).
Patients And Methods:
We analyzed the patient-therapist relationship of 112 patients from two hospitals in Japan (54 males, 57 females, 1 unknown; age 46.20 ± 15.03 years [mean ± SD]) who completed the PRISM and self report questionnaires (LSNS-6, K6, and BASIS-32) about their social network, psychological distress, and outcomes of mental health treatment.
Results:
PRISM measurements were available for all patients who consented to participate. In the comparison by disease category, schizophrenia recorded the closest distance to the psychiatrist in charge, followed by bipolar disorder, depression, and neurotic disorder. Regarding the distance to the psychiatrist in charge, PRISM showed a weak negative correlation (r = -0.23, p < 0.05) with age, indicating that with increasing age, the therapeutic rela tionship was more important to the patients.
Conclusion:
Our findings indicate the possibility of implementing PRISM to assess the impact of the therapeutic relationship in patients with a wide range of psychiatric disorders, and they suggest that PRISM holds great potential for clinical application.
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